


the appointed time

by myrmeraki



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Episode: s03e06 Born Again, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene, Pain, Season/Series 03, Spoilers, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmeraki/pseuds/myrmeraki
Summary: This is how it starts: You find him as a dove with clipped wings, a caged bird. You take him in your arms and cut the rope from his neck, and hold him close like he’s the only true oath you have ever kept. His words and fingers are clumsy and soft, and you are pulled through them like a fish in a fjord. One night he tells you of souls; two moons later with one unmade kiss, you give him yours. You will go to war for this bird. The rest is written.This is how it ends.Spoilers for Vikings s3 ep6 "Born Again", you know what happens and you know what this is gonna be.
Relationships: Athelstan/Ragnar Lothbrok
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	the appointed time

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote a ton of vikings fanfic a year ago and decided i might as well put some of it out into the world, so here's the first of that! comments and kudos are, as always, much loved! it's *the* event of Born Again, fair warning.

This is how it starts: You find him as a dove with clipped wings, a caged bird. You take him in your arms and cut the rope from his neck, and hold him close like he’s the only true oath you have ever kept. His words and fingers are clumsy and soft, and you are pulled through them like a fish in a fjord. One night he tells you of souls; two moons later with one unmade kiss, you give him yours. You will go to war for this bird. The rest is written. 

This is how it ends. 

“I love you,” Ragnar whispered and looked him up and down with a nod. Surely this will be enough. I love you, see, is that enough to stay? _I love you._

“So you… you cannot leave.”

“It does not matter where I go,” Athelstan said with a grip on his shoulder. “What matters is where you’re going.” 

Ragnar looked him up and down again, trying to look at him for the first time all over again because this could be his last. He hurriedly took to memory the lines over his forehead, the eyes that held the sea, the smile that brought the song. He wanted to press the imprint of Athelstan into his heart like the tattoos on his head, written in ink forever. 

Ragnar pulled him close again and fed him promises of protection, promises he yearned with his soul to keep but did not know if he could.

“I would go with you my friend,” Ragnar said finally. _You are my John, remember? Remember?_

Ragnar would follow him to the edge of the earth and off it. 

“Wherever you go,” he said, taking Athelstan’s hand and running his fingers over their many scars, “I will follow.” 

Athelstan’s eyes which he knew so well and so deep after so many years were clouded; sadness and hope and delight altogether. Ragnar would not have thought it possible if he hadn’t seen the looks in the man before. He did not know if it was possible to show so many feelings so clearly, and yet Athelstan wore his whole heart on his arm like a ring. 

Ragnar once thought he knew all the truths Midgard had to offer, the rules of men, and the way they would fall. And then Athelstan opened his mouth at Lindisfarne and turned the tides backward. Athelstan was a new world unto himself that Ragnar wanted to wrap around and swallow whole. He would be Jörgmundr and Athelstan his sea. 

“I have never forced you to do anything,” Ragnar started. The words were marked and measured as if they were planks of wood for a boat. Each was as important as the entire product; this was the most important thing he would ever build. 

“You are and always have been a free man, from the moment I brought you here.” 

Ragnar still held Athelstan’s hand in his and brought it up to his mouth, kissing the deep scar in the middle, kingly. 

“I cannot stop you. But I wish I could. I wish to demand you stay here.” He let Athelstan’s hand fall and reached for his other one. Athelstan obliged and let him weave their fingers together. 

Ragnar took a step back and held Athelstan's hand out. He bent his head and kissed the identical scar over the top of his other hand. 

“I wish to plead of you not leave. I would beg it from you.”

“You are a king and a warrior, Ragnar Lothbrok.” Athelstan smiled at him, the ends of his lips curling up like a goose feather.

“Kings need not beg for anything.”

“I am just a farmer,” Ragnar said with a cracked smile. There was no happiness in it. 

Ragnar squeezed his hand gently and let Athelstan pull it away. He resisted the urge to grab at him again, to hold his head in his hands and lock their eyes together. He could never stop himself from staring at him, even in the beginning and especially now. Ragnar ached to stand opposite him in the hall with his arms crossed and watch him laugh and drink and smile. Their feasts could be for days on end and it would still never be enough to really drink him all in. 

Being with Athelstan reminded him of the stories of Loki and Thor, and the challenges they faced in the home of giants. Thor entered a drinking contest and was told to drain a horn of water, as even the weakest of men could tip it back in three breaths. It was a story told to children time and time over. 

It was a story he had told Athelstan too, as they often traded stories from both their religions. 

Thor drank until his breath ran out, drinking until he was sure he had finished the horn. But when he looked, even after all that was taken in, the horn was still nearly full, and the waters inside it were rising back to fullness again with new water. 

_That is how it is_ , Ragnar had said, _for you._ Athelstan smiled his smile of mirth and confusion. He did not understand. 

There would never be enough time with him. Even if Ragnar pressed their skulls together and held onto him tight, the minute he blinked there was so much more and so much newness to Athelstan he could not possibly have it all. 

He would miss entire worlds filled with the endless ocean when Athelstan left him.

“You were never _just_ a farmer, Ragnar. You were never just anything.” Athelstan looked over his shoulder to the empty hall and pulled Ragnar close to him, wrapping his arms around Ragnar’s waist. They stood chest to chest, heart to heart. Soul to soul. 

Ragnar kissed him then, careful and feeling the seas in his chest as he hadn’t for a long time. The waters of fear. It was like this their first time, he was so scared and so careful like he was handling a baby goat whose legs were not to be trusted. 

He wanted badly to consume him, to kiss Athelstan with the harsh necessity of fire and blood. For the first time in a long, long time, Ragnar feared deep in his bones that acting too quick, too strong, too wholly, would scare him away. Athelstan would realize in one moment how terrible and insane he was and would run as fast as he could across the ocean and land back to King Ecbert. 

So he stood with his hands on the sides of Athelstan’s neck, giving him softness and aching and love. Giving him a sweet hello as his soft lips parted like flower petals and a stale goodbye when they broke apart. Giving him everything, everything, _anything_. 

“And you were never just a priest.” 

Athelstan’s eyes were filled with amusement when he left, and Ragnar feigned the same level of happiness. He could not help thinking it would be the last time he would see him as if Athelstan could in the course of one hour take a boat alone back to England. As if he would be gone. 

______________________

Athelstan’s body was heavy. Ragnar carried the smell of dead flesh and blood with it, along with the ugly infinite weight of guilt. When he saw him split open and empty he screamed, screamed like a newborn baby that had been thrust from warmth into light and terror. He had seen and known death, but this was a newness that sickened. There was no more of him. There would never be more, he would not smile and he would not sing, and he would not whisper secrets in Ragnar’s ear in magic languages, and he would not look or breathe or fight or love. There were oceans in him that would never come to the surface. It felt like the loss of a child taken too soon, taken centuries too soon. Ragnar cracked open and ached with the lack of him. 

He refused any help, refused to speak. A warrior of his tried to ask something of him and Ragnar threw a knife at his head. It did not matter. Nothing mattered anymore. There was no Kattegat, no Paris, no life for him now. He would never see Athelstan again, never hear him, never kiss him or cling to him like a boat in a storm. 

A raven flew over the river with a cry as blood and tears ran down Ragnar’s nose and into the water. Usually, the bird’s cries would bring hope or warmth but the hollowness of his chest would not leave. Even Odin could not know the loss he felt and Ragnar wished for the first time in his life the Allfather would leave him alone. 

“Why did you have to die,” he whispered again to the empty woods. 

The trees were quiet, holding their breath. Even the springtime movements of small animals and birds were absent. Ragnar stood up in the deafening quiet and lack of life and screamed. A roaring ache up to the trees, up to Athelstan’s Heaven, and up to Odin himself. He raged until his throat ran hoarse and he fell into a fit of coughing and then screamed again. He needed noise, needed life, needed _something_ , anything at all to fill up the widening empty. If he let it sit too long in his chest the sadness would swallow him whole, and the only person who could help him was the one he was mourning. 

The bird circling him above finally flew away into the trees, without so much as a goodbye.


End file.
